Visual Perception

Children need to begin visual discrimination by recognizing likenesses and differences in colours, pictures, and shapes. As they master these, move to increasingly difficult symbols, such as letters, numerals, and words.Focus on one color each week. If it is “red” week, then finger-paint with red, make red birds for art, eat red apples or red strawberries for a snack,

Collect a basket of objects that are red, yellow, blue, and green. Ask children to sort the ones that are alike, or hold up one object and let them find all the others that are the same colour.

A pocket chart can also be an effective tool for colour sorting exercises.

Make games where the child must match objects of like colours.

Make a lotto game where children must match colour cards and shapes to the same on their game board. The children each have a game card. The small cards are placed in a pile in the centre. Children take it in turns to take a card from the pile. They match it to their card if they can, if not, they place the card back on the bottom of the pile. The game continues until a child has covered all the shapes on their card and is declared the winner.

Collect large and small pictures of similar objects, and ask the child to match those that are alike.

Make two cards of each of the expressions below. Have children match up the two that are alike. Encourage them to describe how the person feels and why.

Take three objects place them in front of the children. Two should be the same and one should be different. You can use common objects such as blocks, crayons, beads, or small toys. Ask the child which two are alike, then ask them to remove the one that is different.

Cut 3”x5” cards from construction paper or poster board. Print the letters you are learning on the cards. (You should make three or four of each letter.) Have the child match the letters that are alike.

Give the child a newspaper and ask them to circle all of a certain letter. For example, you might ask them to circle all the “m’s” they can find.

Make a mail game where the child can match up letters (envelopes) with the correct person’s house.

These were a few examples to smoothly go from matching shapes and colours to matching letters and words. There is of course an infinite possibility of matching exercise you can do to make sure the child gains the ability to recognize similarities and differences in objects, pictures, shapes, letters, and words by effectively leveraging your environment be it a classroom or your living room.

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